Freefall Read online

  Knowing the wild rush of memories would take over whether she wanted them there or not, she tucked her legs under her and watched the moonlight glimmer on the distant waves and let herself remember.

  She had nearly been twenty-one that summer. A child, barely even a woman.

  Though she hadn't really been so young, she supposed. Shelly had been the same age and she was already a wife and a mother, deliriously happy at the fulfillment of all her dreams.

  Sophie hated to admit it, but her sister's new life had left her feeling adrift, disconnected to the one person who had always been her anchor, her best friend.

  Her other half.

  She had been so lonely after Shelly's marriage, more lonely than she'd ever been in her life. She wanted her sister to be happy but she couldn't help wondering what would happen to her without Shelly.

  Maybe that's why her heart had been so vulnerable to Tom, because she had been looking for something to fill the void left by her sister's new life.

  No, she thought. Even if she had met Tom under completely different circumstances, she knew she still would have been just as drawn to him. He was everything she admired in a man, strong and smart and fiercely independent.

  The first few days at Seal Point—before Tom entered the picture—she had been restless and eager to leave this grand estate by the sea. She didn't belong here. Neither of them did. How could the illegitimate daughters of a rambling cocktail waitress like Sharon hope to belong in a world of old money and prestige like Seal Point?

  Barbara Canfield—William's wife—had tried for Shelly's sake to be polite to her daughter-in-law's profligate twin sister. But Sophie hadn't been fooled. She had seen the disappointment on Barbara's perfectly made-up features whenever she looked at her youngest son's bride.

  The Canfields were not happy about the marriage. Sophie had the strong impression Peter's parents would have preferred things if Shelly had taken her unplanned pregnancy and disappeared back into the trailer-trash world she came from.

  Shelly seemed oblivious to it all, too wrapped up in her husband and her beautiful baby daughter, but Sophie had sensed it and resented like hell any inference that her sister might not be worthy to bear the great and exalted name of Canfield.

  After only a few days, she had been itchy to leave the oppressive atmosphere at the estate, to return to New York and her photo internship at Traveler magazine and the tiny fourth-floor walkup in the Village she shared with three other girls.

  The only thing holding her at Seal Point had been her promise to Shelly to stay at least until Ali's christening, a week away.

  And then Thomas had arrived, home on a brief leave from his Coast Guard assignment in Alaska.

  She vividly remembered her first glimpse of him. She had been in the elaborately decorated nursery one rainy afternoon rocking Ali and crooning softly to the fussy infant in the hopes that she might be able to let Shelly catch a little more badly needed sleep.

  The child seemed finally ready to drift back to sleep herself. The room was warm and dim and she found an unexpected contentment softly rocking a tiny baby girl.

  Sophie closed her eyes for just a moment, lulled by the peace of the moment, when she gradually became aware that the door had opened and a stranger stood in the doorway.

  He was gorgeous, with dark hair cut military-short, silvery-blue eyes and chiseled, tanned features. On a purely abstract, professional level, she would have loved to photograph him, somewhere rugged and wild like a granite mountaintop somewhere with the wind ruffling that hair and his face turned to the sun.

  On a far more intensely personal level, she just wanted to sit there and stare.

  Before she could say anything, he walked toward her. Without speaking, he looked down at the baby for a moment then lifted his head and kissed Sophie on the cheek. He smelled divine, she remembered, that elusive masculine scent, and for one insane moment she wanted to turn her face into his skin and just inhale.

  "She's beautiful," he murmured. "I should have known any daughter of yours would be a real stunner."

  This must be Peter's brother, she realized. Her first thought was that he must have mistaken her for Shelly. Her second: that her sister had to be nuts to fall for a weasel like Peter with his far more attractive brother around. "Um, thanks. But she's not mine. I'm Sophie, Shelly's sister. Don't worry, people get us mixed up all the time."

  He blinked and she thought she saw a hint of color tinge his cheeks in the dim room. "Sorry. My mistake. I'm Tom Canfield. Peter's older brother."

  "Right. The chopper pilot."

  "Yeah."

  "Welcome home."

  He looked vaguely surprised at her words, as if he didn't expect them from anyone here. "Thanks. So where is Shelly?"

  "Napping. This little rascal isn't sleeping very well at night. I was trying to see if I could let her squeeze out ten more minutes before we go in to wake up the chow wagon." She paused and studied him. "Would you like to hold our niece?"

  "Me?"

  "Sure. Nothing to it. Here, sit down." She rose from the rocking chair and gestured for him to sit. After a wary moment, he complied and she gingerly handed over the baby.

  To her amusement, he held Ali with awkward care, as if she were a live grenade and someone had just yanked out the pin. After a moment, though, he began to relax a little and even reached a finger out to stroke the soft skin of the baby's cheek. Sophie wasn't quite sure why the sight of those strong fingers showing such tenderness to a tiny baby sent her insides whirling and twirling.

  She cleared her throat. "See? Nothing to it."

  He grinned at her, then his smile softened as he looked down at the tiny baby in his arms and Sophie had to fight hard to keep from melting all over the carpet in a boneless heap.

  Instead, she leaned against the crib and watched him croon to their shared niece for a few moments until Ali started to fret.

  He gazed at Sophie with a slightly helpless look. "What am I supposed to do now?"

  "This is where we find Shelly and make our escape," she said with a laugh.

  Over the next few days, she and Tom spent a great deal of time escaping together. Shelly, wrapped up with Ali, really didn't need Sophie's help, so Tom offered to take her sightseeing around the Monterey Peninsula.

  She had a feeling he volunteered to show her around, at least at first, more as an excuse to get away from what she quickly deduced was a complicated situation at Seal Point than out of any compelling desire to spend time with her.

  He and his father had obvious differences of opinion about many things, not the least of which was Tom's military career, and whenever they were together tension hovered between them, heavy and taut with unspoken arguments.

  While she felt vaguely guilty for taking Tom away from his family during the brief time he could visit, she had to admit she found his company intoxicating. He challenged her mind and thrilled her senses and made her laugh.

  Together they shopped at all the funky little shops in Carmel and took a whale-watching cruise, where she was embarrassingly seasick and watched the sunset off Asilomar.

  He kissed her for the first time three days after he arrived home. One night at dinner with the family, Sophie announced her intention to rise early and drive down the coast to photograph the Point Sur lighthouse in the sweet light at sunrise.

  Tom volunteered to take her, as she had secretly hoped he would. Early in the morning, they sneaked out of the house, laughing and whispering together like children.

  After the curving drive down the coast, Thomas pulled his Jeep into a narrow overlook off the highway where he assured her she would be able to get spectacular shots as soon as the sun started to rise.

  They leaned against his Jeep sipping hot coffee from a thermos and nibbling on a couple of Mrs. Cope's divine cinnamon rolls they'd stolen out of the Seal Point kitchen, and watched the light change from black to lavender to pearl.

  When the sun finally burst above the mountains—revealing a vast
, stunning expanse of cliff and ocean and sky and the slim lighthouse perched on its own steep island—she had been breathless with the sheer raw beauty of it all.

  She hadn't been able to squeeze off more than a few frames when without warning, he reached for her and kissed her. His warm mouth tasted of cinnamon sugar and coffee and just like that, her foolish heart had tumbled into love like a pebble tossed into the sea.

  Over the next week before Ali's christening, Thomas took every opportunity to kiss her as often as possible. They kissed in the moonlit gardens at Seal Point, in a stand of towering redwoods off Highway 1, over clam chowder on Cannery Row.

  They didn't talk about the future, about the unalterable fact that they lived thousands of miles apart, that they might not see each other again.

  Sophie wouldn't let herself think about all those things. For the first time in her life she didn't focus on her carefully laid plans for the future, a future she would build herself. Instead, she lived only in the moment, only for the thrill of being with Tom and that painful flush of first love.

  Finally, the night before Ali's christening—the night before she was to leave to return to her job in New York—they had wandered hand in hand down the long redwood stairway down the cliff to the beach.

  He carried a blanket over his arm and a bottle of wine and anticipation thrummed through her.

  This was it.

  The entire week had been building inexorably toward this moment. The evening breeze was warm, pleasant, but she barely noticed it, too consumed with the man she had fallen for so hard.

  The small, secluded beach was private, accessible only by the Seal Point stairway. When they reached the sand, Thomas spread the blanket just above tide level then settled her onto it. They sat together gazing at the sunset, not saying much, just savoring this last time together.

  Right before the sun slipped beneath the sea, he turned to her and kissed her passionately.

  "I want to make love to you."

  She shivered at the rough note of desire vibrating through his voice. Answering heat trembled through her. "What's stopping you?" she murmured, trying hard to sound sophisticated, as if she had done this dozens of times before.

  "I don't want you thinking I bring hundreds of women down here. What we have had this week has been incredible."

  He paused and in the last dying rays of the sun, his features looked as if they had been hewn from the same rock as the cliffs towering above them. "I care about you, Sophie. I wasn't looking for it. Heaven knows, I'm still not sure I'm ready for it, but you just knocked me on my butt from the first time I heard you laugh."

  She laughed. "Oh, that's very flattering. I don't think I've ever knocked anyone on his, um, rear end before."

  This was an amazing night, she thought as he laughed along with her and kissed her again. It was the most magical, intense night of her life and she wanted to remember every bit of it, from the murmuring sea to the sweet, warm air kissing her skin to the stars popping out one by one.

  "Pete is the glib one in the family," Tom went on, his breath warm against her mouth. "I might not have all the right words but I'm trying to tell you I'm crazy about you. I don't want this to end when you leave tomorrow. I know we'll be on separate coasts but we'll figure something out. I can fly out to New York or fly you up to Anchorage. Maybe I can put in for a transfer to the East Coast."

  Lost in the haze of growing desire, it took her a moment to register his words. When she did, fear poked at her with tiny barbs.

  He was talking about the long-term here. Not a fling, not a summer romance.

  What did she know about having a healthy relationship? The only example she had in her life was Sharon, with her constant string of men who changed as frequently as the daily special.

  This wonderful, unbelievably sexy man was telling her he had feelings for her and all she could think was that she was bound to mess this up. She had always believed she was genetically preprogrammed to fail at love. How could she be otherwise with Sharon for a mother?

  Why didn't Shelly worry about this? she wondered. Her sister was deliriously happy with her husband and child, building her dreams of forever. If Shelly believed she could make it work, why couldn't Sophie believe the same thing?

  Though fear still licked at her, she pushed it away. This was her chance, her moment, and she couldn't let her mother destroy this for her, too.

  She leaned across the blanket and kissed him. He groaned against her mouth and pulled her close, molding her body to him. While the waves churned against the rocks, their mouths tangled and their hands explored each other more intimately than ever before.

  "I should probably mention I haven't done this very much," she said on a gasp just as his hands reached a very interesting part of her body she'd never paid much mind to before.

  He stilled. "How much is not very much?"

  "Um, never."

  He growled a harsh oath then leaned his forehead against hers, his breath coming in ragged gasps. "You can't tell me that."

  "Why not?"

  "How can I take you on the beach for your first time?"

  "You're a clever man. I'm sure you'll figure something out. A girl can only hope."

  His laugh was rough, short. "Are you sure?"

  She kissed him in answer to his question, throwing the entire force of her emotions into the embrace.

  Making love with Tom on that moonlit stretch of beach had been beyond anything she could ever have imagined, sweet and tender and passionate.

  Afterward, they lay in each other's arms for a long time, just listening to the ocean and the night creatures calling and peeping. She wanted to stay there forever, until she remembered she had promised Shelly she would spend at least part of her last evening with her.

  Scrambling up, she hurriedly dressed.

  "Can I be with you later tonight?" Tom asked. "Come to your room?"

  She nodded, already anticipating a heavenly night in his arms, then she kissed him one last time and hurried for the stairs.

  * * *

  She had hoped to slip into her room for a quick shower before joining her sister in the nursery but the moment she walked inside the house, a door opened down the hallway and Peter stepped out.

  Her sister's husband was the last person she wanted to talk to right now, with the haze of joy still surrounding her. But when he spoke to her, she knew she couldn't just ignore him.

  "Sophie, I'm glad I bumped into you. I wanted to talk to you for a moment."

  "I'm on my way to meet Shelly," she said warily. She wasn't sure why but something about the expression on his handsome features made her uncomfortable.

  "It will only take a minute. Why don't you come into the library and sit down."

  She didn't know how to politely refuse so she followed him into the richly appointed room. It was like some old-fashioned library from an English manor somewhere, with hunting prints on the walls, leather armchairs and walls and walls of books.

  He gestured to one of the armchairs and without asking her preference, poured her a glass from a decanter on the desk. She took it but didn't sip, still heady from Tom's arms.

  "Shelly tells me you're leaving us tomorrow."

  "Yes. I have a job waiting in New York."

  "What a shame. I've hardly had a chance to talk to you."

  And that's just the way I like it, she thought. She had tried during this visit but couldn't bring herself to swallow her distaste for her sister's new husband.

  She couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was she disliked about Peter. He seemed to adore his wife, treating Shelly like some cherished treasure.

  Some probably would say he was more conventionally handsome than Tom, smooth where his older brother was rough, and she couldn't deny he could be charming in a suave, polished way.

  But she still didn't like him.

  "I'm sure I'll be back before you know it to visit my sister."

  "You and Shelly are close, aren't you?"

  "Ver
y."

  "Do you tell her everything?"

  Again she felt uncomfortable at the strange expression in his eyes. "Not everything. Why do you ask?"

  He shrugged and offered her a small smile over the rim of his glass. "Just wondering if you're planning on telling her about screwing my brother."

  She gaped at him. "Wha—what?"

  "I don't miss much. I've seen the way you and Tom look at each other. The two of you have been thick as thieves this week. Besides, I saw you go down to the beach with him and I have to tell you, I've been sitting up here the whole time you've been gone imagining what the two of you were doing down there."

  Her stomach churned. In just a few words he made something that had been wonderful, magical, seem dirty and wrong. "Whatever we might have been doing is none of your business."

  She stood up quickly and headed for the door but he was faster and reached it before her.

  "Come on, Sophie. Don't be that way." To her horror, he reached out and traced his thumb down her jawline. "You're a beautiful woman. On the surface you look like your sister but you're different too, in some elemental, fiery way I can't quite put my finger on."

  "I never asked you to put your finger—or anything else—on me."

  He laughed. "You have spirit. That's one of the things I like about you."

  She needed a shower desperately. A long, wickedly hot shower to wash away his touch. "I'd like to leave now. Please move."

  "And I'd really like you to stay." His smile was feral. "I don't see why you can't give me some of what you're so willing to hand over to my brother."

  She stared at him in shock for several seconds, trying to process how such crudeness could come out of someone who pretended to be so refined. "That's disgusting," she finally said. "You're married to my sister."

  "And I love Shelly. I do. But she just had a baby and won't be cleared to have sex for weeks. That's just too long for a man like me to go without, if you know what I mean."

  She was going to be sick. Nausea roiled through her, slick and greasy. "Tough. You're a big boy. You can deal with it. Buy a dirty magazine or something, but leave me alone."